http://www.advanced-television.com/2005/news_archive_2005/Aug1_Aug5.htm Spain overhauls TV market From David del Valle in Madrid Spain's Government has approved an important package of measures that will reshape the Spanish TV market in the coming months. ... The cabinet meeting also agreed to allow pay-TV operator Sogecable to turn its pay-TV channel into a free-to-air service, although it has imposed several conditions on the acquisition of football and movie rights. The new FTA Canal Plus will be also obliged to broadcast 24 hours before December 2005. ... -------------------------------------------- So somehow, this cable channel has found it to their advantage to air their content on a newly available FTA band. That's what I've long believed could happen here as well, as more frequency bands and more subchannels become available with DTT (after analog shutdown, and with the relaxation of many of the UHF tabbos, *and* with the existing local ownership cap rules in place). I would love to see a clear explanation for how these Sogecable folk have rationalized their request for FTA access, and why that rationale would not work here in the US as well, as seems to be the consensus of opinion on this list. Bert ---------------------------------------------------------------------- You can UNSUBSCRIBE from the OpenDTV list in two ways: - Using the UNSUBSCRIBE command in your user configuration settings at FreeLists.org - By sending a message to: opendtv-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word unsubscribe in the subject line.